During the ‘60s, one would have been hard pressed to find a local bar or juke joint that didn’t have a Hammond B-3 organ and the concomitant Leslie speaker as part of the landscape. Groups led by Eddie "Lockjaw" Davis, Sonny Stitt, Wild Bill Davis, Willis Jackson, and many others kept those kinds of places packed with people who liked to jam and finger pop to the funky sounds of the time. It’s no accident then that the major independent record labels of the day would develop a stable of artists …

While few would even consider arguing the relative importance of the musical genius of Thelonious Monk and his impact on generations of subsequent composers and pianists, dissent can sometimes by heard when considering Monk’s recorded oeuvre which spanned many decades and is documented by several labels. While his Riverside years are universally hailed as the period of greatest artistic growth and integrity, his subsequent stay at Columbia found him producing music that many critics felt was som …

In the right hands, a guitar is like a piano in that its combined harmonic and melodic possibilities can render a sound that is larger than life. From the 12-string to the kind of hybrid models that give players like Charlie Hunter the ability to play bass lines in tandem with their chords and lead lines, the guitar continues to be one of the most versatile instruments in jazz, a fact to be gleaned by merely sampling our modest survey of some new releases by a handful of string artists.

Even as this is written, master engineer Rudy Van Gelder has finished mastering another set of 50 albums for the Japanese RVG Series. That brings the total available output in that country to 250 titles. On the American front things have been far more conservative, yet an additional five titles have just been issued to compliment the 30 discs already in circulation. Of these five, one session has never been reissued in the United States, while the others are making a second appearance on compact …